Summary
The programming language Pascal is claimed to be more suitable than other languages for “teaching programming as a systematic discipline”. However, an investigation of the Reports on the Pascal language reveals that it suffers as much from ill-defined constructs as many of the languages to which it is supposed to offer an alternative. Problems with the language are caused primarily by the confusion of ranges, types and structures and by the phenomena associated with goto statements.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Wirth, N.: The programming language Pascal. Acta Informatica 1, 35–63 (1971)
Wirth, N.: The programming language Pascal (Revised Report). Berichte der Fachgruppe Computer-Wissenschaften, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, Zürich 1972
Naur, P. (ed.): Revised report on the algorithmic language ALGOL 60. Comm. ACM 6, 1–17 (1963)
van Wijngaarden, A. (ed.): Report on the algorithmic language ALGOL 68. Num. Math. 14, 79–218 (1969)
Knuth, D. E.: The art of computer programming, Vol. 1 (ch. 2). Reading (Mass.): Addison-Wesley 1968
Dijkstra, E. W.: A short introduction to the art of programming. Dept. of Mathematics, Technological University. Eindhoven, EWD 316, 1971
Dijkstra, E. W.: Notes on structured programming. In: Dahl, O. J., Dijkstra, E. W., and Hoare, C. A. R.: Structured programming. London: Academic Press 1972
Wulf, W. A., et al.: BLISS: A language for systems programming. Comm. ACM 14, 780–790 (1971)
Dahl, O., et al.: Simula 67: Common base language. Norwegian Computing Center, University of Oslo 1967
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Habermann, A.N. Critical comments on the programming language Pascal. Acta Informatica 3, 47–57 (1973). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00288652
Received:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00288652